


Recompense

by domesticadventures



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Coda, Episode: s11e10 The Devil Is In The Details, Hopeful Ending, Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-15 21:49:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5801515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domesticadventures/pseuds/domesticadventures
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel can feel Lucifer moving his hand, snapping his fingers. He feels the shift as his body is dragged through space, and then, through the haze, he sees the bunker.</p>
<p><i>You stay away from them,</i> he hisses.</p>
<p>Lucifer responds with barely-contained glee. He says, <i>As if you can stop me.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Recompense

**Author's Note:**

> Inspiration: [here](http://linneart.tumblr.com/post/83944591326) and [here](http://backwardstieandblueeyes.tumblr.com/post/137726709021/).
> 
> I continue to be eternally indebted to [Cecilia](http://femmechester.tumblr.com/) for her fantastic beta reading and hand-holding. <3

The fact that Lucifer is able to possess him is a testament to just how far Castiel has fallen, to just how human he’s become.

There’s a certain peace that comes with it, at first, once the decision has been made and he’s surrendered himself to this newfound purpose, resigned himself to this fate. As Lucifer’s grace diffuses through Castiel's vessel, it forces his own grace out of the way, sits like a barrier between him and the world. Everything is softer, suddenly, sounds and smells barely registering, every sight darker and dimmer when filtered through the glory of Lucifer’s grace.

It’s out of Castiel’s hands, now, quite literally. All he can do is watch idly as Lucifer takes control of his body, flexes his fingers, moves to stand, heals his wounds.

He’s given up control of his body, and it seems so much easier to simply give up on everything else, too. To stop caring. It’s better that way, he thinks. Better to leave the heroics to the actual heroes. To the people who can actually manage it. To the people who matter.

Castiel feels himself detaching as he watches Lucifer let Sam and Dean go. He watches as Lucifer turns around, walks back into the warehouse and uses Castiel’s hands to kill Rowena. Lucifer will use his body to take out Sam and Dean’s enemies, one by one.

And then Sam and Dean will come for him. Castiel believes in this with whatever small scraps of faith he has left.

It seems so simple, all of a sudden. It feels good. It feels like he made the right choice.

He lets himself detach completely, retreats into himself the rest of the way. After all, he has nowhere else to go.

He knows it’s self indulgent, but he likes to imagine that Sam and Dean will find a way to send Lucifer back to the cage without having to send Castiel with him. He plays out dozens of scenarios where they manage it, where Lucifer is sent packing but Castiel is allowed, for once, to stay.

He pictures waking up on his back on the floor, Dean pulling him up from the ground, wrapping his arms around him, telling him how happy he is that Castiel is okay, that they all made it through this. He imagines Sam’s face as he wraps Castiel in a hug, his pride when he says, _We did it. We did it, and this time, Lucifer didn’t take any of us with him._

He imagines what it would be like, how it would feel to be so overwhelmed by love from Dean and Sam after having spent so much time feeling hated, feeling dispensable. He imagines allowing himself tears of relief and of joy, of catharsis that he has so long been denied.

The problem with all of this is, of course, that none of it will happen. There’s a gaping hole in Castiel’s fantasies, a chasm between his situation and his salvation.

Sam and Dean will look for a different solution, of course, for a path that doesn’t involve Castiel's destruction along with Lucifer’s. They’ll try their best. In the end, though, they won’t be able to find one. It doesn’t matter how much they might want it. It doesn’t matter how much Castiel wants it, either. It never has.

In the meantime, though, he can go on imagining.

His guilt won’t allow him even that escape, though. He pictures a scenario where Sam and Dean save the world with some help from their friends -- Jody and Donna and _Claire_ \-- and that’s his mistake.

He wonders, suddenly, what Jimmy used to imagine. What he used to fantasize about. He wonders if while isolated in his own mind, Jimmy played out scenario after scenario where he was reunited with his family, where he was in control of his own body, where things returned to normal and he got his old life back.

Castiel likes to think the reason he doesn’t know is because prying into Jimmy’s thoughts would have been even more of a violation. If he’s honest with himself, though, he remembers who he was. He remembers how cold he had been, how little he had cared; how convinced he was that he _shouldn’t_ care. If he’s being honest, he knows the truth: he simply wasn’t interested.

_Oh, but_ I’m _interested,_ he hears, and he’s been so caught up in his own thoughts that it takes him a moment to realize that Lucifer is talking to him.

_What?_ Castiel asks, ineloquently, once he gathers himself enough to respond. Lucifer has the vessel he needed; what more could he want? _Why?_

_Well,_ comes the reply, _I suppose I feel a certain...kinship. Between one of heaven’s rejects and another._

There’s a strange sensation, then, the hum of Lucifer’s grace brushing against his own, a slow slide. Lucifer can be subtle, Castiel knows, if he wants, can be the snake in the grass, the quiet whisper.

_You might even call it a profound bond,_ Lucifer says, and then something shifts, makes Castiel feel as though he’s being pulled apart and sorted, being examined one atom at a time.

_What are you doing?_ he demands, suddenly afraid.

Castiel can feel, distantly, Lucifer twisting his mouth into a grin that is unlike any either Castiel or Jimmy ever wore. He says, _Research._

He understands what Lucifer means with the first memory he plucks out and replays. He makes Castiel rewatch them one by one, dozens of his interactions with Sam and Dean over the years, from the tense, awkward interactions when they first met to the casual familiarity of late. Castiel watches, rapt in spite of himself. With everything condensed like this, all these discrete moments played back to back, he can see the changes in himself played in fast forward, watches himself become softer, more comfortable, more human by the minute.

_Interesting,_ Lucifer says, and then Castiel finds himself watching a different sequence.

He watches himself die by Michael’s hand, watches himself take Sam’s hallucinations upon himself. He watches himself drive a stake through leviathan and get dragged into purgatory, watches himself say, over and over, _I always come when you call._ And then he watches how that plays out.

_Very interesting,_ Lucifer says, and switches gears again.

Castiel relives one interaction with Dean after another, every fond look Castiel freely gave, every gentle touch, every word of forgiveness or loyalty or understanding.

Another switch.

Castiel watches Dean leave him standing in a ring of holy fire. Watches Dean give him the cold shoulder. Watches Dean slam his fists into Castiel’s face over and over.

_You love them so much,_ Lucifer says, _yet you’re nothing but a tool to them. How sad._

He flips idly through some more memories. Castiel wonders if he’s waiting for a response, a rebuttal.

He has no counterargument to offer. Instead, he says, _What does this have to do with defeating Amara?_

Castiel can feel a thrill run through Lucifer’s grace, something bright and amused. _Nothing,_ he says. _I’ll get to her in due time. But first, I’m going to have some fun._

Castiel can feel Lucifer moving his hand, snapping his fingers. He feels the shift as his body is dragged through space, and then, through the haze, he sees the bunker.

_You stay away from them,_ he hisses.

Lucifer responds with barely-contained glee. He says, _As if you can stop me._

Castiel knows he’s right, but he tries, anyway. He fights back for the first time, struggles to crush Lucifer’s will with the force of his own, force his own grace back out into his body enough to regain control.

It’s not enough, of course. He’s never been enough.

He focuses all of his energy on the effort, anyway, fights the entire time Lucifer is pretending to be him. He’s only aware enough to register the fact that for a while, Lucifer does manage to convince Sam and Dean he’s still the Cas they know. He hears bits and pieces of conversation, catches glimpses of the inside of the place he always wished he could call home.

It’s Lucifer’s own overbearing attempt to keep up the charade that ultimately distracts Castiel from his struggle. He can’t help but focus on what Lucifer is doing, now, on the way he’s making Castiel put his hand on Dean’s shoulder, the way he’s making Castiel's features soften as he looks at Dean, as he tells him some soft lie.

He doesn’t know what exactly it is that gives Lucifer away, but suddenly Dean throws that hand off his shoulder. He says, voice strained, eyes narrowed, “You’re not Cas.”

Lucifer doesn’t bother trying to deny it. “Well, I guess the jig is up,” he says, and laughs a laugh that sounds nothing like Cas.

Dean shouts for Sam and raises his gun.

Lucifer makes a disappointed little noise in the back of Castiel’s throat. “Oh, Dean,” he says, “I thought you would have learned by now that those little toys don’t work on me. Not even your precious Colt.”

“Shit,” Dean hisses, as Sam runs into the room. He shouts, “Sam, it’s Lucifer! He’s got Cas!”

Lucifer simply laughs, throwing both Sam and Dean back against opposite walls with a flick of Castiel’s wrist. He releases them long enough to let them lunge at him, let them take a few useless shots, before flinging them back again to crash into the bookshelves, knock over the tables, break the chairs.

“Humans,” Lucifer sighs,casting a disapproving glance at Sam’s crumpled form. “So hopelessly powerless.”

Dean picks himself up off the floor, raises his gun again. He growls, “Give him back.”

Lucifer turns toward Dean, tearing his gun out of his hands and forcing him up against the wall with a casual gesture. This time, though, he goes to the trouble of walking up to him, of getting right up into his personal space.

“Hmm,” Lucifer says. “Let me think about it.”

Lucifer clenches Castiel's fist, pulls his arm back. He gives his answer as Castiel's knuckles connect with the side of Dean’s face: “No.”

Castiel recoils at it, at the feeling, once again, of hurting Dean with his own hands. There’s more to it, this time, though; there’s the added horror of the realization that this is what he did to Jimmy. He isn’t sure he even remembers how many humans and angels alike he killed with Jimmy’s hands, how many sins he committed while in Jimmy’s body. How much pain he forced Jimmy to watch himself inflict.

Thinking about that would still be preferable to focusing on the feel of his body being used to hurt Sam and Dean, but of course there’s no escaping it.

Lucifer has Castiel's hands curled in the front of Dean’s shirt, holding him up as he tries and fails to simultaneously support his own weight and twist himself free of Castiel's grip.

“Cas,” Dean says, blood dripping from his face and down onto Castiel's hands, “this isn’t you.”

Lucifer smiles as he watches Dean struggle uselessly. “Of course it isn’t,” he says. “What do you expect him to do about it?”

“You gotta fight this,” Dean says through gritted teeth, even though he must know they are both fighting losing battles.

“Oh, he is,” Lucifer says. “He’s fighting me right now. Unfortunately, it isn’t making a difference.”

Dean closes his eyes, throat working. Castiel reaches for him with everything he has, tries to regain control long enough to explain, to let him escape, to do _something._

Castiel fails at his internal struggle, but Dean succeeds.

Dean opens his eyes, meeting Lucifer’s gaze with his own. Even trapped in his own skin, Castiel can feel the weight of that look. “Cas,” Dean says, voice soft. “I love you. Please.”

Castiel wants it to be enough. He wants so badly for Dean’s words to give him the final push he needs to wrest control back from Lucifer. After all, it was Sam and Dean’s love for one another that allowed Sam to do just that.

The difference, of course, is that Sam had decades of good memories to draw on, to give him strength and hope and faith. Castiel, though? There are bright points from recent years, all of them centered around Sam and Dean. Behind that, though, stretches the rest of his existence, the vast, empty millennia far outweighing his time on earth, the meaningless eons outnumbering the worthwhile days a million to one.

That’s why, when Castiel feels himself regaining control of his body, he knows it isn’t through any merit of his own. He knows it’s only because Lucifer lets him.

He wants to say _I love you, too,_ but instead he says, “Dean, I’m sorry, I--”

That’s all he gets out before Lucifer takes control back. It isn’t even a struggle for him.

Lucifer makes a slow smile spread across Castiel's face. He says, “Just kidding. It’s a shame, you know. He loves you, too. Pity it isn’t enough.”

Castiel watches horror spread across Dean’s face, watches pain and rage and desperation flicker over his features. He can’t look away. Couldn’t look away, even if Lucifer would let him.

Castiel feels the fight drain out of him. Out of both of them.

Lucifer leaves Dean like that. Snaps his fingers and disappears.

He doesn’t go nearly as far as Castiel wants. Lucifer makes him sit on top of the bunker, dangle his legs off the side. It’s his way of gloating, Castiel knows. Of saying that even if Sam and Dean come looking for him, it won’t make a difference. At this point, he has every reason to be confident.

_Did you see his face when he thought his confession got through?_ Lucifer crows. _You’re not even dead yet and it’s already killing him._

Castiel watches in horrified silence as Lucifer rifles through his memories again, replays every look Dean has given Cas, every touch, slowing them down, drawing them out so that Castiel has to look at them longer. Dean with his hand on Castiel's shoulder saying _Don’t ever change._ Dean hugging him fiercely in purgatory, promising not to leave without him. Dean with his hand on Castiel's cheek, his eyes on Castiel's face, pulling him up from the floor.

Lucifer pauses it there. _See that look on Dean’s face?_ he says. _How could you not recognize it? That’s love._

Castiel doesn’t know which is worse, the thought that Lucifer is reading it wrong or the thought that he’s reading it right. He thinks back to all the memories Lucifer had played through before. He doesn’t know which set to believe.

Castiel says, _But you said--_

Lucifer’s delight spreads through Castiel's grace like a storm rolling in. He says, _I lied. I’d say I’m surprised you didn’t figure that out, but you didn’t even know how he felt. How could you have been so blind?_

_How would you know?_ Castiel demands.

_What a stupid question,_ Lucifer scoffs. _Did you forget why I was cast out in the first place? I know exactly what love looks like._ He lifts Castiel's hands, turns them over. Looks at Dean’s blood on his knuckles. He says, _I’m going to watch your love turn to bitterness, too._

Lucifer closes Castiel's eyes, stretches his awareness down into the bunker.

_You know what Dean is thinking right now?_ he says, and Castiel knows Lucifer is going to tell him whether he wants to know or not. _He’s thinking that if he had just done something sooner, if he had asked you to stay, if he hadn’t been so afraid, that he would have known it wasn’t you back when you turned down a ride. He’s already blaming himself. Poor Dean, thinking this whole situation could have been avoided if he had been a little better at loving you._

Lucifer shifts his awareness, then, changes his focus. _Sam’s blaming himself, too. How predictable. Poor little Sammy is berating himself for not figuring out it was me right off the bat, seeing as he knows me better than anyone. I don’t know what’s sadder, that Sam knows me better than any other human ever has, or that he knows me better than he knows any other human._

_Well done, Castiel,_ he says. _You were trying to save them from pain, but all you managed was to cause them both even more._

Castiel already knows that, of course. He knew he had made a mistake the moment Lucifer set foot in the bunker. He wishes, desperately, that he had known it before he had said _Yes._

But he had given that first _Yes,_ the only one that matters, no matter how many times he wanted to say _No_ afterwards. It doesn’t matter how much he regrets it. There’s nothing he can do to undo it, no way he can revoke it.

He can’t beat Lucifer in a fight, either. Can’t overpower Lucifer on his own. He’s already tried and failed.

He is, after all, no Sam Winchester.

_“We’ll get Cas back no matter what it takes,”_ Lucifer says, voice lilting, mocking. _That’s Dean, of course. How terribly romantic._

Castiel shrinks back from Lucifer, tries pointlessly to shield himself from his running commentary. He feels so tired. He wants to be left in silence. He wants to forget about the choice he made, just another line item on his long list of mistakes.

He wants to go _home._

_Cas,_ he hears, as if on cue. He cringes involuntarily before he realizes: it isn’t Lucifer’s voice. It’s Dean’s.

_Dunno if this’ll even work, but...God, I hope it does. Listen, if you can hear this, we’re not mad at you, all right? You made a hell of a stupid choice, but you were...you were stupid for the right reasons. We’re gonna fix this, okay? We’re not gonna stop fighting. So don’t you dare give up, either._

Castiel waits for Lucifer to react, sees if he’s heard the prayer not meant for him. Long moments pass, but nothing happens. No scathing remarks, no mockery.

Castiel’s eye twitches.

It’s then that Lucifer’s voice returns. _Got our second wind, did we?_

Castiel hadn’t even realized he’d been trying. He thinks back on Dean’s prayer, focuses on it until it consumes his thoughts. Dean hadn’t repeated his confession, but Castiel could hear the _I love you_ in every word.

Castiel expands as far as he can go, pushes against the walls of his cage.

He steels himself for battle.


End file.
